CfP: Workshop on Mixed-Initiative Case-Based Reasoning

Objective:
This workshop, whose participants must register for ICCBR'03, will
build on the ECCBR'02 MI-CBRW by providing an interactive forum
for discussing and encouraging the analysis, extension, development,
and demonstration of mixed-initiative CBR (MI-CBR) methodologies.
These CBR variants are characterized by an iterative sharing/swapping
of control between the user and the software system (e.g., to guide
retrieval, support incremental query elaboration). Our primary goal
is to clarify the possible roles of integrating CBR in
mixed-initiative intelligent approaches for problem solving (i.e., for
both analysis and synthesis tasks). In particular, we seek to
identify interesting unsolved problems that require further attention,
and approaches for solving them, that could provide a research focus
for groups or individual students. Our subsidiary goal is to publish
a survey/status journal article on MI-CBR.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

Dialogue:

Natural language interpretation of dialogues

Grammars for extended user dialogs in MI-CBR systems

Attribute-selection strategies

Dialogue recovery strategies

Similarity and diversity roles in dialogue strategies

Roles of explanation strategies in MI-CBR

Roles of MI-CBR methodologies in:

Integrated MI systems

Recommender systems

Personalized systems

Novel (e.g., knowledge management) applications of MI-CBR

Analysis of MI-CBR methods:

Identifying domain characteristics amenable to MI-CBR

Categorizing existing/promising MI-CBR approaches and applications

Theoretical and empirical (e.g., comparative) analyses

Evaluation methodologies, metrics, and measures for MI-CBR

Knowledge containers:

Learning strategies (e.g., exploiting user feedback, automated)

Targeted containers and their unique maintenance needs

Ontology development and use

Development and maintenance of process models

Background/Motivation:
Many researchers, practitioners, and organizations have developed
MI-CBR variants that support interesting computational behaviors. This
includes, for example, Inference Corporation's "conversational" CBR
(CCBR) products, knowledge navigation systems developed at the
University of Chicago (Hammond et al., 1996 chapter),
mixed-initiative case-based planners (e.g., Cox & Veloso, ICCBR'97),
and dialogue systems such as the Adaptive Place Advisor (Göker &
Thompson, EWCBR'00). However, while several companies and researchers
have continued to contribute to this topic (e.g., Burke, Gupta,
McSherry, Muñoz-Avila, Shimazu, Yang), no recent survey exists that
focuses on MI-CBR. Although it was a focus of a special issue on
Interactive CBR (Applied Intelligence, 14(1), 2001),
interested researchers have had limited opportunities to discuss this
topic at more general meetings.

This motivated holding the
ECCBR'02 MI-CBR Workshop, which whetted the appetite of attendees,
given that several current and popular application areas for CBR
strategies involve significant user interaction. But while that
workshop identified existing MI-CBR approaches, categorized them, and
introduced new subtopic areas (e.g., dialog grammars for MI-CBR,
ubiquitous computing applications), it was lean on analyzing MI-CBR
from broader perspectives (e.g., personalized systems, non-CBR MI
approaches, characterizations of domains suitable for MI-CBR), as well
as more focused analyses (e.g., comparisons of MI-CBR approaches,
analysis of MI-CBR approaches from knowledge container perspectives).
Thus, several topic areas have not yet been discussed in depth among
researchers studying this topic.

Structure:
This 1-day workshop will consist of a series of focused discussions,
led by selected participants, that address some of the subjects listed
above and discuss both current work and open issues concerning
mixed-initiative CBR (MI-CBR) methodologies. Some invited
presentations may also be integrated with this sequence to provide
additional detail on information related to the workshop's focus
(e.g., we may solicit presentations from group leaders to summarize
their group's work). We will reserve one or more time slots for system
demonstrations, and will also include a presentation that summarizes
the activities to take place at the IJCAI'03 Workshop on
Mixed-Initiative Intelligent Systems. Workshop details will be
determined with the assistance of feedback solicited from expected
participants (via an e-mail list). Scribes will be recruited from
among the participants to assist with recording the discussions and/or
authoring the survey.

Paper review process: We solicit paper submissions for this
workshop; please use a max 8-page Springer-LNCS format. Short submissions that focus
on a specific implementation are also welcome; if accepted, the
author(s) will be expected to demonstrate their system at the
workshop. Please email your submissions to the workshop's Chair. Please zip
submissions that are of substantial size. Printed copies of the
workshop proceedings will be available at ICCBR'03, and we will attempt to
place them at the workshop's www site.

Attendees: This workshop will be
open to all registered participants of ICCBR'03. Although ICCBR'03
attendees are welcome to contact us any time prior to the workshop,
please contact the Chair to
state your intention to attend, and to be added to the mailing list
for workshop-related decisions and announcements.